Celebrate solitude on loneliest road

Thursday

Sep 27, 2007 at 12:01 AM

Crossing into the Silver State from the Golden one, 287 miles of gray asphalt roll toward Utah. Making the seemingly innocuous change from the beauties of Lake Tahoe toward Mormon country means that, for the next several hours, your drive is spent mostly in solitude.

Rick Brewer

Crossing into the Silver State from the Golden one, 287 miles of gray asphalt roll toward Utah. Making the seemingly innocuous change from the beauties of Lake Tahoe toward Mormon country means that, for the next several hours, your drive is spent mostly in solitude.

Welcome to the loneliest road in America.

Highway 50 in Nevada - a segment of a transcontinental roadway that leads from West Sacramento to Ocean City, Md. - was called the most desolate driving strip 21 years ago by writers and photographers of Life magazine. That designation was due mostly to the stretch of 110 miles between Fallon and Austin, where you can putter along at the speed limit and not see another car, either in front of you or coming from the opposite direction for miles. In the intervening years, officials of the Nevada Department of Tourism slapped Highway 50 with the lonely label and encouraged residents to pleasure-drive it.

Why? Well, there's really no other reason than to celebrate solitude.

There are no traditional tourist traps - no amusement parks or outlet malls - along this stretch of Highway 50.

But the road does pass various state parks, ghost towns and fishing holes.

From the west, travelers first go through Carson City, Nevada's capital. With 56,000 residents, Carson City long has been dominated by Las Vegas and Reno in economic and cultural importance. But the city nonetheless was named Nevada's capital in 1861, three years prior to its admittance to the union and not long after the Comstock Lode silver strike. Its silver-domed capitol is quaint but impressive.

The next 62 miles pass through Dayton and Silver Springs and lead to Fallon. Dayton boasts a colorful history and several Nevada firsts, the most debatable being its claim as the first non-American Indian town established. Other notable statewide firsts, officials say, include the first newspaper, gold-dredging operation, recorded marriage and divorce - by the same couple, no less.

Records indicate that a prospector returned to Dayton to discover his 14-year-old daughter had gotten hitched in his absence. The miner grabbed his minor and fled for California, with the resentful groom in pursuit.

When townsfolk caught up to the man and his teenage girl, everyone decided to let her choose. In what would become a future Nevada cottage industry, the girl opted for a quickie divorce then left with her pappy.

Now, Dayton is growing and boasts a 72-par golf course designed by Arnold Palmer. Silver Springs, on the other hand, is a pass-through community of trailer homes and liquor stores.

Yet, it's this portion that reminds you of Highway 50's location near the famous Pony Express trail. Only a few yards away, horse-riding letter carriers neared the completion of their 10-day, 1,800-mile journey of untamed Western expanse. Other than the highway and a few outbuildings along this stretch, not much has changed.

Fallon is the last town before the loneliest road really begins. Officials hype the annual air show, bluegrass and cantaloupe festivals. But Fallon also is home to the last remaining publicly owned telephone company in the United States. The phone system is operated by Churchill County.

The two-hour stretch of desert now begins, and Life magazine is correct. The desolate road, with few markings and fewer places of interest, draws almost no cars in the opposite direction.

Midway between Fallon and Austin is a Pony Express station built in 1860. The historic marker tells passersby that Cold Springs was an important stop for Wells Fargo & Co. and other stagecoach companies. But its importance faded when the transcontinental railroad and attendant telegraph line was built.

Of course, now they are equally obsolete. And so would be a drive across Nevada's portion of Highway 50 were it not for its history and designation - deserved or not - as the country's least-populated stretch of asphalt.

Contact Rick Brewer at (209) 546-8294 or rbrewer@recordnet.com.

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